


Plain Bread Is Better

by Blame Canada (OneHitWondersAnonymous)



Category: South Park
Genre: And believe it or not, Anger, Angst, Arguing, Believe me that matters, Bottom Kyle, Cheating, Delusions, Dysfunctional Relationships, Explicit Sexual Content, Failing Marriage Specifically, Gift Fic, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Marriage, Masturbation, Mental Breakdown, Mental Disintegration, Mental Health Issues, Minor Character Death, Paranoia, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2019-03-29 11:29:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13926228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneHitWondersAnonymous/pseuds/Blame%20Canada
Summary: Stuck in a life he deigned to lead, Kyle watched each aspect of his life fall to pieces, one by one, cracking beyond recognition. He watched his marriage crumble, his own mind splinter, and his perception of reality warp. Then, that perception became reality, and he was none the wiser.You see, Kyle had himself so thoroughly convinced that something was wrong that he didn't have the capacity to realize that the something that was wrong was maybe, just maybe, himself. Once he saw that self in the mirror, however, in an act of assured self-destruction, he chose to ignore it anyway.Gift fic for Julads, a fellow lover of Style at its most dysfunctional. Rated E for explicit mentions of sexual acts, but no openly detailed sex scenes. Angsty and painful. One-shot.





	Plain Bread Is Better

**Author's Note:**

  * For [julads](https://archiveofourown.org/users/julads/gifts).



> Well, there are many things that I could say about this piece that I probably shouldn't get into for the sake of time, so I'll keep it as simple as I can manage. I wrote this for my dearest friend Julads for her birthday, because I love her and because Style is something we can always love together. That said, this is a pretty bleak fanfiction! Read at your own risk! 
> 
> Hopefully, the raisins you find are significant to you, the reader, and the ones I've stuck in, stick out.

The sun had long since sunk beneath the horizon to make way for the moon, but his lights never dimmed, never wavered or flickered or buzzed until forcibly extinguished by the weary flip of a switch. The clock blinked steadily,  _ ‘three o'clock, three o'clock, three o'clock AM,’ _ the glaring red of its LEDs emitting tiny glows that could only be seen after Kyle decided he was too exhausted to keep his eyes open- even under his intentionally blinding lights. He paid the moon nor the clock no mind, per usual, and to mock him, to emphasize the pure mediocrity and stagnancy of his work, three slow knocks banged not at his door but at the wall beside it. Kyle grunted, glanced at the clock— _ fuck, three am isn’t even that bad _ —and sighed. He looked down at the mess he was hooked up to and untangled himself from his headphones and notes and texts enough to drag out of his chair and roll his back straight. It strained in his lower spine and he groaned again, rubbing at it while he took his time to get to the door. When he made it, he didn’t pull it open all the way.

“What is it,” he asked, not bothering to mask his irritation, “it’s not even that late-”

“Kyle,” he said, and Kyle glanced up to look into the eyes that typically so rudely judged him this time of night. It took a moment for him to realize none of that questioning and skepticism was in his demeanor this time however, and he let the door swing open a little wider, letting it catch on his hip. “Your dad passed.”

Kyle blinked deliberately, let the door slip a little wider still, the warmer hallway lights bleed into his own, and stood straight. “Do you know why?”

“No. Peacefully, mom says.”

“Oh,” was all Kyle had to say, and then they were packing their bags for home three hours later, and he was watching the sun rise from the passenger seat at seven and cursing the tradition that funerals be held as soon as humanly possible.

“Are you okay?” Stan asked, his eyes blinking rapidly to keep them focused on the highway. He was unaccustomed to Kyle’s reality of little to no sleep, funeral or not. They rarely went to bed at the same time anymore. Some cosmo-type article said that was bad for relationships once, and every once in a while, Kyle would remember that.

“I’m fine,” Kyle insisted, and he used his own clockwise twisting of the radio’s volume knob to signal that he was uninterested in holding a conversation. Stan struggled to keep alert without his active company, but managed. He put on his sunglasses when the sunlight pierced his vision from behind the mountains, and they arrived by ten.

A funeral had not been the way he wished to return home. With some sort of medal of honor perhaps, for his ‘incredible findings’ or ‘intellectual bravery’ or something else gaudily congratulatory. Something with the president’s signature on it. That would have felt good, at least. All he had now was the little black ribbon he tore and fastened to his breast pocket, and a lot of shoulder pats and pitying smiles that made him feel like maybe he should be more emotional than he was feeling. He would put on a bit of a show at the service with some fat tears just in case.

His mother was just about as emotional as he had expected: sobbing as though their marriage hadn’t fallen apart twenty years ago. She was, unfortunately, the token woman at a funeral who always blew her nose noisily between each psalm. She was hugging him and Stan and Ike a lot. He felt like it was probably a dick move to decline. The frailty of her frame startled him the first time, more so than usual. She was losing the weight she’d had all his life. It was as he watched her greet people and take their sympathies that he felt his first real pang of emotional distress, and Stan pressed his hand to his back as though he could sense it.

While the suddenness of the whole ordeal was less than satisfactory, the justified week away from his shitty job was gladly welcomed. He felt a little closer to Stan too, which was something he wished would’ve come to be without the need for a death to push it, but he would take anyway. He did miss his study room, and his books and notes. He never knew how much he could miss couch cushions until he had to weather an entire week without them, and Stan similarly complained in whispers as they faced each other in stiff, closet-scented sheets in the dead of night.

With a subsequent soreness in both their backs, they fucked for the first time in three weeks in the guest bedroom on the sixth night. It was carried out like a silent civic duty, both physically and emotionally, but was also so horrendously blasphemous that it satisfied him immensely anyway. He didn’t tell Stan, who probably would refrain if he knew of the restriction. “ _ No, it’s fine,” _ he’d whispered when Stan asked, already half naked and hard. His mother would die of shock if she knew, and while he had been dutifully silent, part of him would have liked the thrill of shocking her, breaking  _ Shiva _ when he hardly stuck to his faith as an adult. A squeaky bed frame would have been excellent, but he was not so subtly lucky, as she’d replaced the frame recently. Kyle was glad he wouldn’t have to look at his packed lube with disdain for not being used when he unpacked back home, at least.

Maybe it was pathetic to have hoped a time of grieving would guilt Stan into having sex with him, and to get off on the excitement of breaking tradition in the process, but he didn’t care, not really. It was nice to see the slight spring in Stan’s step on the seventh day after their lackluster, but theologically kinky fucking. They replaced the couch cushions and his mother kissed them both goodbye on their cheeks and they drove home, and all Kyle thought about was how much work he would have to do to catch up on his reading. Stan sang along to the radio every once in a while, but they were otherwise silent.

Perhaps to detail his own life like a list of bullet points on a sticky note was unhealthy, too detached or too critical of the events in his own life. Kyle wasn’t sure how else to explain the way he moved through each day of his existence lately however, as though he  _ was _ floating through bullet points- not entirely present but still making the key motions. He could tell it frightened Stan by the way he looked at him over breakfasts, peering over in nervous glances between news articles he scrolled through on his cell phone. Kyle didn’t feel he had the energy to assure him that everything was alright.

Everything was not alright, and in the pits of despair completely unaffected by his father’s death, Kyle had a hard time remembering a point where things were right at all.

 

* * *

 

“Don’t you have work?” startled him, and Kyle snapped his eyes open just to glare at the entryway of their bedroom as though he hadn’t just woken him up. As though he’d been up for hours, and Stan should mind his business in regards to Kyle’s waking schedule. He must have accidentally closed out his alarm instead of snoozing it, and with a slow, lazy reach, he pulled his cell phone off the bedside table and clicked it awake. It read 11:22.

It took Kyle’s brain a moment to catch up, but as soon as he did, his glare grew harder. “When do I  _ not _ have work? And why didn’t you wake me up sooner?” He swung his legs around the end of the bed and jumped to his feet, fighting the dizziness on his way to the bureau. He had to be leaving in eight minutes, and apparently Stan hadn’t thought to check on him any earlier than the last possible moment.

“I figured you were just, in here, doing your thing on your phone or something!” Stan protested, using the whiny voice that made Kyle want to strangle him where he stood. He refrained from entertaining the fantasy and continued tugging on clothes haphazardly, before rushing to the bathroom to half-brush his teeth and down his medication cocktail.

He only took them when Stan was watching.

“You usually check in like, an hour before. What the fuck were you doing?” Some part of Kyle could probably recognize that this argument was asinine—some part. Not his current parts though, because all they could feel was frustration and annoyance and disdain.

“I was just—I was playing a game, okay? I couldn’t see a clock. I guess I lost track of time.”

“You guess,” Kyle deadpanned, and he accidentally stuck himself with the pin of his nametag with a sharp hiss. Stan lurched forward slightly, as though he wanted to help, but Kyle knew better. Stan didn’t give a shit about him at all anymore, not if he was forgetting to check on him before work. God, he was so angry.

He clicked his phone to life again to check what it said. 11:29. He shoved past Stan, who was standing frozen like an idiot in the doorway, to get to the shoe rack to fly out the door. He didn’t look up from his laces until he was about to turn the lock open. He glanced back and Stan was there, a sizable distance away, but with such a painful expression of regret and hurt that Kyle couldn’t keep his eyes on him. “See you after work,” he muttered, his eyes cast aside while he hovered against the door handle, and Stan’s response was:

“I love you,” spoken with such soft dejection it made Kyle’s anger flare with an uncomfortable wave of sadness. He didn’t want to feel guilty, and so he forced himself not to, and he turned the knob to twist away from the door and lock it back up behind him in record time.

He clicked his phone.

11:32.

Alone, so very, terribly alone, he mumbled, “love you too,” to Stan but also to himself as he shoved past the front door of the complex and into the blistering cold of winter. He was one minute late in and his manager would surely ask for a word later in his shift, but for now, he adjusted his nametag, and put on his best fake smile.

“I can help you down here, sir. Did you find everything okay? Good. Your total is $14.58. Just insert the chip if you have one and press the green button. Oh, it’s okay, people mix it up all the time, hah hah. Try it again. Would you like to donate a dollar to help end world hunger? Yes, you can round up your total too, no problem. Alright, so your total is $15.00. Receipt in the bag? Okay, thank you for shopping at Target. Have a nice day!

“I can help you down here, ma’am. Did you find everything okay?”

 

* * *

 

It was his day off and Kyle was spending it doing what amounted to nothing on his laptop, which was his least favorite but most often performed leisure activity. He sat long-ways across the couch, which he knew was always bad for his back. He peered over the top of his laptop screen and glanced at his bare feet, which were crossed and basking in the late day’s sunlight that made the fine hair on the tops of them glow white and blurry. The way all his joints curled in thick knobs had always disgusted him, and he wrinkled his nose before hiding them again behind his screen, unwilling to ruminate on his physical shortcomings.

Distant rustling caught his attention, and then the front door swung open, creaking on its hinges. Kyle didn’t look up, but did glance at the clock on his laptop to confirm his thoughts—that Stan had finished his day at the office and was coming home, like a regular portrait of the ideal family man. Kyle resisted the urge to snort at such a concept. After this long, he was pretty certain there was no possibility of “ideal” for them in the cards. They’d weathered too many scars in too many different ways.

“Kyle?” Stan called, and when Kyle gave him a quick affirmative, he heard him finish tugging off his work shoes and watched him shuffle into the living room in his socks. He had a warm smile on his face, and looked cute with his hair a little worse for wear and shirt untucked. He always untucked it as soon as he clocked out.  

“How was work?” Kyle asked, instinctively.

“Fine,” Stan replied, instinctively, and he marched to the bedroom to change out of his work clothes, customarily. Life had become such a routine.

He continued to click away through clickbait news articles, enjoying the last few moments of silence before Stan would wander in and start making entirely too much noise. Playing some game or watching some show, voices and sound effects always ringing in his ears. He really needed to pick up noise-cancelling headphones one of these days, just to plug his ears.

When Stan reappeared, his nose was buried in his phone, and he was tapping at it rapidly to text someone. Kyle’s eyes narrowed, his mood immediately dropping into the pit of anger that hissed below everything else, at his core. He hated that he got suspicious every time he was on his phone, but Stan didn’t have any friends. He didn’t trust that it was solely friends he spoke to. He claimed they were internet friends, gained from playing games together, but that was such an easy cover to make.

Kyle couldn’t deny that ceasing his medication had allowed his paranoia to flare up, but the danger of doing so was that the things everyone would label “delusions” were just too  _ realistic. _ He tried to ignore the churning in his belly as Stan dropped down on the couch, waiting for him to move his legs out of the way. Because he felt like being a child, he didn’t move them.

Stan finally looked up from his phone to twist around and look at his intrusive legs, then at him. Kyle made a point to stare directly at his laptop. “Can you move, dude?” he asked, and Kyle hummed.

“Can I?”

“Kyle, don’t be a bitch,” Stan complained, and before Kyle could yell at him for calling him a bitch, he grabbed both his legs and lifted them for him. He suspended them in the air as he scooted back, and when he released his hold, instead of bending and crossing them, Kyle kept his calves stiff as a board and let them fall against Stan’s head.

“Hey—come on, man! We only have one fuckin’ couch,” but Stan was smiling, laughing underneath every syllable, and Kyle smiled. They hadn’t had a moment like this in a long time.

“But I was here first. Really, I deserve this space. I had a long day.”

Stan snorted. “A long day of nothing,” he muttered, and he yelped a high-pitched “ow!” when Kyle kicked at him. “Fucking quit it.”

Kyle dared to say, “Make me,” and that was the end of it.

His eyes widened as he watched Stan turn to face him and he barely had a moment to set his laptop safely on the coffee table before Stan was on him, his hands grabbing for his legs and trying to force them back. He put all his strength into keeping them locked flat, but Stan was strong, and he was losing. “Fucking—my—spot!” he argued while he shoved back, but Stan shoved harder, and his legs finally collapsed and bent to hit his ass. “That’s not fucking fair,” he whined, but Stan just kept laughing, his shoulders shaking and his eyes shut, and Kyle might have remembered why he loved him.

When he sobered up, Stan crawled up closer to him, moving his hands to grab at Kyle’s arms instead. Kyle was pinned to the couch, and while ordinarily he would complain, part of him was desperate for this positive interaction. He wanted to feel like they used to so badly, in a way he hadn’t in months. For that, he silently smiled, and let Stan mess around. He kissed him and Kyle was hyper-aware of the excessive spit involved that grossed him out. He was desperate though, so desperate, and he did everything in his power to ignore the fact that he didn’t really want to kiss him at all.

They moved to the bedroom to fuck and though it had more emotion in it than they’d experienced in a while, it still wasn’t the same, and that depressed him. For the first time in ages, Kyle ached for the way they used to be instead of raging for the way they were now, and he spent the rest of his night in a bad mood that Stan took personally, but he couldn’t be bothered to explain. It was in these moments that Kyle felt not angry, but sad that he wasn’t enough for him. Stan went to bed, alone as always, and Kyle kept doing nothing for the sole purpose of avoiding the intimacy of falling asleep together. He didn’t go to bed until he absolutely had to, because he knew the moment he woke up the mood would be reset, and he’d be back to slowly coming to hate him even though he knew deep down that Stan had done nothing wrong.

 

* * *

 

Kyle fucking hated Stan’s phone. It was always in his hand, and he was always scrolling or tapping or laughing quietly to himself, and it pissed Kyle off that he felt jealous. Every day his theory that Stan was having an affair strengthened, and the rational part of his mind that said otherwise weakened. He knew exactly why, too, and the reason was what made him angriest.

Several months ago, Stan had confessed that he’d been interested in switching roles. He was bashful about it, said it had been a curiosity for a long time, and that Kyle didn’t have to if he didn’t want to. He’d declined, because he didn’t want to, and now it came back to bite him, which he found entirely unfair. Stan was dissatisfied and so he’d fallen into the arms of another who would fuck him how Kyle wouldn’t that one time, and it was the most bullshit reason to cheat on someone that Kyle had ever heard.

He hadn’t been able to catch him yet, but he would one of these days, and then he could finally be justified in saying he hated him. He didn’t really hate him though, and Kyle didn’t think he ever could, not really, and that pissed him off. He spent a lot of time angry, nowadays. He would blame the halted medications if he didn’t know that his emotions were within reason. It was justified to be angry about an affair. Furious, even. He was impressed by his own show of restraint, really, waiting to accuse him until he caught him in the act, or gathered more evidence.

He leaned back in the chair of his study, his read and reread copy of  _ The Old Man and the Sea _ resting on his stomach while he lazily paged through it. It wasn’t so much that he loved this book, but that he found Hemingway’s later comment on it having no symbolism endlessly amusing. There was something so simple and yet so powerful about a statement denouncing the work of countless scholars just to say that no, nothing means anything, and anything you find is your own interpretation. It was an abstract concept that made a painful amount of common sense, and he often reminded himself of it whenever he picked up another book to analyze.  _ ‘Nothing means anything,’ _ he thought, and he sighed as his eyes inevitably landed on the English literature degree that mocked him from the wall.

He wasn’t supposed to be here. They had a nice house, and he had a nice job, and he was going to go to graduate school. Then he got laid off, and they couldn’t afford the house, and they moved to this lackluster complex to make ends meet while he slaved away at fucking Target. He hated those damn red polos and that he had about ten of them hanging in his closet. He couldn’t wait to burn them all once he got a good job again, back on his feet. Someday. Eventually.

He heard a knocking at his door, and he sighed before getting up to open it. Stan was waiting for him, but his eyes were downcast at the fucking rectangle that connected him to someone else.

“You need dinner?” Stan asked, still not bothering to look up, and Kyle growled deep in the back of his mind.

“Can you look at me for once?” he complained, and Stan clicked his phone off to connect eyes with him. He looked exasperated, annoyed with him for demanding such a menial thing, and Kyle snarled out loud and grabbed for his phone. He protested with a yelp.

“Kyle, what the f-”

“Who the fuck are you always talking to?” he nearly yelled, and Stan blinked at him, his phone held up too high and far for Kyle to reach now.

“My friends and I are planning to play together tomorrow-”

“Hah! Oh,” Kyle said, all the humor missing from his tone and replaced with sarcastic glee, “right. Of course.”

Stan looked confused, his head slightly tilted while he backed away from the room. “Right…” he repeated, unsure of what else to say, and Kyle reveled in his nervousness. He wanted Stan to realize he knew, but not by telling him outright. Evidence, he needed evidence. His avoidance was the perfect addition to his list of suspicious behaviors he’d been collecting for months, though. Soon he’d have him, soon enough, and they could end this tiresome charade of both pretending the other was unaware.

Stan sighed, and turned away from him. “I’ll make extra, in case you want it,” he mumbled, and Kyle hardly paid attention, the equal parts victory and heartbreak of another piece of the puzzle connecting filling up his chest with adrenaline. It was validating and tragically sad, and terrible, and exhilarating. Kyle knew it was fucked up to act like this, but he didn’t care.

He saw the extra rice in the pot when he went out into the kitchen at two in the morning and dumped it in the trash.

  
  


* * *

 

There was eternally something otherworldly about an airport that made nothing feel permanent. They ate together at the built-in Starbucks while the sky was still damp with the night’s brief shower. He’d snagged a stale muffin, and Stan an inevitably stale bagel. It made him want to tear his hair out, just how fuzzy and unreal everything felt. He could feel his nerves vibrating, humming just under his skin, close enough he could scratch them out, and he resisted the urge by breaking the threads of his sleeve hems instead.

They didn’t speak- they hardly ever did anymore, and especially not before their first hits of concentrated caffeine melted into their bloodstream. Stan sipped at his coffee blearily, cleared his throat, scratched his neck where his stubble grew long. He rubbed at his eyes from under his newly procured reading glasses, and they bumped up and down over his intruding knuckles. They looked good on him—made him look sharper. It was a shame he only wore them some of the time. He looked over his ticket information for the fifth time, the paper still bearing imprinted folds.

“Why are flights always so goddamn early,” Stan muttered, his voice still husky with sleep. Kyle made an agreeing noise over the lid of his styrofoam coffee cup. He blew gently into it to cool his next sip but it burned his tongue anyway. A glance at the overhead clock told him they had a little over a half hour before boarding time. He set his cup down on the table and sighed.

“What are we doing, Stan?” he asked, chancing it, and Stan set his own cup down, shooting him a tired, confused look.

“We’re waiting for my flight, what do you mean, Kyle?” Stan said, but it was easy to pull from his tone that he knew Kyle meant something else, and the irritated exhaustion in his question made him seethe. He sucked in a briefly calming breath and straightened his shoulders, crossed his legs, and pursed his lips.

“I mean this. What are we doing? Why do we keep this up?”

Stan sighed. “Kyle, please, not now-”

“No,” he insisted. “If not now then never.”

“It’s five in the goddamn morning Kyle, I’m not awake enough to deal with your-” he cut himself off and rubbed at his forehead, wincing, and Kyle’s anger rose steadily like it did every time he so much as thought about this. “I’m about to leave for a week. Can we talk about this when I get home?”

Part of Kyle wanted to demand that he stay home. He was more important than whatever bullshit business trip he had for an excuse. He knew it was bullshit. He never had business trips. He had nothing to do on a business trip that would be relevant to his position. He insisted it was “to open up more possibilities,” but Kyle knew that script. He’d seen enough movies, dramatizations, biographies, and real-life accounts to know it was a dirty cover, but one he could never catch him in a lie about.

His story was solid, but Kyle knew.

Stan was still staring at him expectantly, the little twisting of his brow enough indication that he’d been agitated. “Fine,” Kyle spoke between clenched teeth, and he ripped more aggressively at his sleeves for the remainder of their tense twenty minutes sitting on cold, rickety, shitty metal chairs, across from each other but already miles apart.

He looked forward to fucking himself on every surface that Stan wouldn’t as soon as he walked back in the door of their apartment, his anger propelling him through the terminal with more enthusiasm, life, and care than he’d had when he kissed Stan goodbye. He waited for a frenzied text; some indication that the plane had gone down and Stan wanted to desperately reassure that he loved him and died feeling that desperation, but it never came, and Kyle growled as he shoved his thickest dildo further up his ass on the kitchen floor.

 

* * *

 

One week with no other human contact was probably not his smartest decision, but he couldn’t bother himself to care. Kyle had asked for the week off and had been approved, and he hadn’t told Stan. He would’ve gotten some sort of earful about how it was bad for him to be alone, but he did not, did not,  _ did not  _ care. His husband was away from home, cheating on him with some hot prostitute in California, covering it up as a business trip for the shitty factory he filed paperwork for, and he did not care.

He made good on his intention to defile every surface, more than once, and he wished it had made him feel anything at all except deep remorse and shame. He hated it. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw an increasingly attractive blond plowing his husband in ways that he refused, and so he kept his eyes wide open the entire time, staring at his crazed expression in the reflection of the TV, the kitchen counters, the windows, the mirrors, everywhere. His own eyes haunted him but he’d rather they be his than some imagined fantasy man that was fucking Stan back into satisfaction, refreshing him to return happily to his actual marriage in some twisted sort of justification that made him sick. Several times he would start to cry, and he’d have to control himself before coming just as pathetically into his own hand as if he’d kept a straight face. It was all pathetic, terrible, and he hated himself so deeply that he found he could do nothing else except masturbate, and so it was a circle of personal torment that at the very least kept him breathing.

A few times he considered going out for himself, snatching the nearest young and desperate fuck he could and allowing him to have his way with him as messily he wanted. It was only goddamn fair, if Stan was going to let Brad, or Chris, or whatever this hyper-masculine specimen was called, fuck him silly. And Stan probably loved it, that slut, sucking cock like he was born to do so in a way Kyle was allowed to brag about but not Stan, no, not him. Stan was top and that was how it had always been and Kyle refused to swap and he knew Stan was curious but that he’d never relent just for his little fantasies. Stan was frustrated because Kyle wouldn’t fuck him that one time and Brian in California was the answer, apparently. His own dick was sore from how aggressively he’d handled it all week but he continued to rub himself raw while the anger and despair consumed him.

It was Friday, and Kyle was lying despondent in bed like he did any moment he didn’t find himself eating or orgasming or crying. The four days that had passed where Kyle had not set one foot into his study were perhaps the most shocking, for once completely unable to even consider burrowing into his happy place. The TV in their bedroom was on but he couldn’t tell what was playing, more captivated by the gentle buzzing of his cell phone instead. He was receiving calls now, which he kept sending to voicemail. He didn’t know who it was because he deliberately left the device far from reach on the bedside table. His eyes flicked up vacantly each time it lit up. If it was Stan, he’d rather leave him in a panic. Maybe then he’d worry about his potentially dead husband instead of fucking his worries away without him.

He sat up a bit to pay more attention to the TV—it was playing some sort of reality show, some crazy housewives shit that somehow still got viewers. He watched women scream at each other without really watching it. If someone were to ask him what went down in the episode, he’d have no idea what to say. Still though, they screamed, and he stared ahead in a game of chicken that he kept losing every time he blinked.

Eventually, his phone reached a point where it wouldn’t stop buzzing at all, and after the fourth consecutive minute of constant vibrating, he snatched it from the table to shut it completely off. When he glanced at the front screen, he was furious to see not Stan’s name as the caller but Kenny instead, whom he hadn’t spoken to in months. Months! If an old friend had more sense to call him than his husband, then, well, what point was there at all? With a scowl and snarl he held the buttons down and suffocated his phone, and he slammed it roughly back on the table, dead. He curled up to one side and considered jerking off again, but couldn’t find the energy, so he stared at the wall and thought about his husband’s infidelity until his thoughts became too incoherent to formulate fears and turned to meaningless crying instead.

He allowed himself to realize that he really, really hated himself.

  
  


* * *

 

Kyle was working on his third nap of the day when he heard a quiet rattling sound come from across the apartment. It should have stirred him, worried him, and probably would have at any other point if he wasn’t so intent on wasting away as much as possible in his bed. He wanted as much proof as possible that Stan was killing him,  _ killing him _ by cheating on him, and so he was intent on being the biggest mess he could orchestrate in time for his return. 

Then, he heard footsteps, and a familiar voice that wasn’t set to return for another three days—or had he lost track? His phone had been off and the clocks didn’t have the date.  _ “Kyle?” _ he yelled, worry thick in his throat, and for the first time, Kyle smiled. Maybe he did care.

“Kyle?” he asked as he got closer to the bedroom, and he repeated it again,  _ “Kyle!” _ the fear in his voice deliciously disturbing. How sweet revenge was turning out to feel. “Kyle, what the  _ hell _ is going on?”

He gripped Kyle by the shoulder and forcibly turned him on his back, to make him look directly into his eyes. They were red with spiderwebs of blood, and there was dew in his eyelashes. Kyle closed his and started to laugh softly, slowly and cynically, and he felt Stan’s hand tighten on his skin. He was angry now, finally. This was what he wanted.

“Do you really care, Stan?” he asked, unable to keep some of the bitterness out of his tone, though he wanted to stab him as painfully as possible anyway and maybe such a thing would help. “Do you really?”

“Kyle, what the  _ fuck _ is happening?” Stan sounded close to hysterics, and he dropped Kyle’s shoulder to card his fingers into his hair and tug at it- an obvious tell for stress. “I-I couldn’t get ahold of you—nobody could! Why weren’t you-”

“I turned it off. My phone.” He blinked ahead, his expression as blank as he could muster.

_ “Why?” _ He sounded so exasperated, so  _ done, _ and that was just what he wanted. God, this was exactly what he wanted.

“I figured you wouldn’t care, if you were so intent to leave me in the dirt.” Kyle sat up suddenly, the fire rising from his belly and the room spinning. “Hope you used a condom,” he spat, and Stan put his other hand in his hair too, his eyes wide and wild and his elbows out like wings.

“Kyle, I left the thing early. I thought you were fucking dead or something! Or sick, or something, I dunno, but—what the fuck about a condom, what the hell are you on?”

“Don’t fucking lie to me!” Kyle roared, and he threw the blankets off his legs so he could shakily get to his feet and shove his finger at Stan’s chest. “Don’t you  _ fucking _ dare keep lying to me-”

“Lying about what!” Stan cried, his voice high and cracking, and Kyle felt the fire explode from his body, felt it lap against every surface in the room and toast his skin and envelope his arm as it pointed forward toward Stan’s chest.

“You’re gonna make me fucking spell it out too? God, how sick are you!” Kyle was hardly paying attention to his words, but his molecules were vibrating, his entire body ready to burst, his fingers twitching and ready to fight.

“I don’t know what you want me to spell out!”

“I  _ know _ Stan. I fucking  _ know _ that you just needed a pretty little excuse to get out of our house and into the arms of some big manly  _ man _ to fuck you sideways like you  _ always wanted,” _ he snarled, the emphasis on his words so rough he bit his tongue. The taste of his blood propelled him further, gave him strength as Stan backed away, confusion, anger,  _ fear _ in his eyes.

“Kyle, I,” Stan faltered, one hand half out as though taming a monster, and maybe Kyle really was a monster now. “Do you think I’m  _ cheating _ on you?”

“I don’t think, I know!” Kyle said, his voice so shrill it was grating on his own ears. “Why the hell would your shitty fucking factory send you on a  _ business trip? _ You push papers! You don’t go to meetings!”

Stan paused at this. He rose from his defensive stance, his eyes still wide but his composure weakened. Yes, he had him, he would admit his infidelity now-

“Kyle, I went so I could get a promotion. I needed to do the training to get the raise. Did you…” he sunk back into the wall, looking terribly fatigued, “Did you pay attention at all when I told you any of this..?”

Somewhere, deep in Kyle’s chest, some rubber band of sanity snapped, and the resulting sonic boom made his heart feel pinned with splinters. He shook his head, no—no, he wouldn’t be manipulated into being the bad guy, he refused! “You’re mad because I wouldn’t fuck you, and you went off to California to find some other hot piece of ass”—he paused to choke on a sob,  _ fuck, he didn’t want to cry, desperately did not want to cry this time _ —“who would do it for you! You’re mad because we don’t have sex anymore and I got laid off and work a shitty job now so we have to live in a shitty apartment, and our lives fell apart and now I’m completely inadequate! And you’re too much of a coward to say any of it to my face!”

Stan was silent, pale and blinking rapidly at him, and Kyle was heaving breaths like he’d run a marathon. He gave himself a moment to recollect as the words he’d just slung through the air settled over them like a depression, ugly and melting like black tar. “So,” he rasped, cleared his throat briefly, “just say it. Tell me the truth, Stan.” He sat down at the edge of the bed, too tired to keep on his feet any longer or do anything at all but stare directly into his husband’s steady eyes.

“You want the truth?” Stan said, his voice low, and Kyle could hear the smolder in his tone but didn’t care to fight with it. He just wanted this cord cut, the final threads sliced, the ribbons of their torn up relationship shredded to indiscernible pieces.

“You have been so awful to be around that I can barely stand it anymore.” Kyle tensed, his body going numb, though he supposed he’d asked for it. “I looked forward to this dumbass trip. It would be a break away from whatever it is you’re constantly mad about, or doing just to piss me off. I thought maybe a week away from home would help me sort it all out, but you know what you did?” He paused, long enough for Kyle to get a word in if he wanted, but he kept his lips sealed tight. “You made such a gigantic mess of yourself that I had to leave that trip early. Instead of take advantage of a week away from your  _ insanity, _ I spent the whole time worried about you. So congrats, if what you meant to do was keep me fucking prisoner in your little games. You did it!”

“I knew it, I knew you hated me,” Kyle whispered, but Stan barked a sharp laugh that made him jump. He could feel the fear in his own face now, confronted with things that hadn’t sunk in yet.  _ ‘Awful,’ _ and  _ ‘mess,’ _ and  _ ‘insanity’ _ rattled in his brain like dice in a cup.

“No, Kyle, and that’s the worst goddamn part.” Kyle looked up at him, and somehow Stan was conveying anger through the disdained smile that was poisoning his lips. He had his head in his hand, gripping at his temples and refusing to look at him from across the room. “You’ve done everything you can to fuck us up, fuck yourself up, and me, but I don’t think I  _ can _ hate you. I just don’t.”

Kyle sucked in a breath and held it, shocked at the deja vu of his own thoughts coming out of Stan’s mouth. Somehow, the admittance that he didn’t hate him made him feel a whole lot worse than if he’d said he did.

Neither of them spoke, stuck in a stalemate, and with each second that ticked by, the air grew thicker and harder to breathe. Then, Kyle let his mouth run: “I want you to leave.”

Stan’s confusing angry smile disappeared at that, and he looked at him with such rage that Kyle recoiled, curling into the bed and peering up at him like meek prey cornered in the jungle. “You want me to leave,” he asked, though it was more of a confirmation than a question.

“Please leave,” Kyle said quietly, repeating himself, and his breathing grew shallower. “I need you to—I need you out, I need you to go. Leave!” The volume of his voice rose with every word, and his fingers itched, spasmed with a need to destroy. Stan hadn’t moved an inch. “Why aren’t you leaving? Leave me alone!”

“Kyle-”

And before he could get a word beyond his name in, Kyle screeched, tore the lamp on their bedside table out of the electrical socket, and hurled it at the wall beside Stan. Pitched it, as much strength as he could muster, so that it hit the wall so quickly its stained glass shattered instantly. Stan had dodged directly into the doorway and the door swung backwards where he fell into it in his clumsy escape. He looked up at him with murder in his eyes, and regret trickled down Kyle’s throat and into his lungs to make his air feel like sawdust that burned every inch of his insides.

“If you need me,” he said carefully, so furious that Kyle could see the trembling of his fists that were clenched tight at his sides, “I’ll be at Kenny’s.  _ Fuck you, _ Kyle.  _ Fuck.” _

And with that last remark, Stan turned around, walked through the rest of their home, and directly back out the front door, the latch locking with a distinctive swish.

Kyle stared at his left hand for a long time after Stan left. He stared at its open fingers, the way it lay abandoned on his thigh, an evil thing he wanted to detach himself from so aggressively that he was disappointed he didn’t have a tool strong enough to lop it off. He raked his nails against his forearm instead, just to feel it again.

The gravity of his actions came to him in slow waves. He stopped his scratching to look at the floor where the millions of pieces of his lamp lay scattered, completely unfixable. With a sharp slice through his heart, he realized it had been his father’s. He’d helped him make the stained glass when he was seven. It was one of his earliest memories. Of all times for his father’s death to catch up to him, now was perhaps the worst choice of them all.

Shaken, disturbed, crying, he grabbed his cell phone from the table and revived it. When it finally finished booting up, a tsunami of messages, calls, emails, and even facebook messenger notifications blew up the lock screen. His missed calls listed Kenny four times and Stan twenty, and he hated himself for choosing when Kenny was calling to bother looking at it, days ago, before shutting it off. Stan had been trying to call him too but he’d picked up at Kenny, and he was filled with so much remorse that a choked gasp ripped itself from his throat. His trembling fingers struggled to unlock his phone, but when they did, he went directly to his texts.

 

Sunday 6:34 PM

_     just landed. love u, talk soon _

_    theyre already making me talk to ppl. im gonna lose it dude _

 

_    goodnight :) _

Monday 9:19 AM

_    i hope ur work day is better than mine today. theyre making us talk ab ourselves and i wanna die honest to god. ugh. money better be worth it. love u, talk soon _

 

_    Kyle? _

_    goodnight  _

Tuesday 12:11 PM

_ can u pls text me back, i know u hate it but im getting worried? _

_    please, Kyle. come on. _

 

_    Please? _

Wednesday 8:58 AM

_ im calling kenny. this is ridiculous. i cant believe u. _

 

_    Kyle? _

_    please at least answer kenny dude. i cant tell if youre seriously in trouble or not. _

 

_    now ur going straight to voicemail??  _

Thursday 10:14 AM

_    Im guessing that maybe your phone is off or maybe youre just really wanna ignore me. Maybe if you put any effort into this relationship we wouldnt be where we are. I dont know what else to try w you. you need to grow up.  _

 

_    if ur still reading these i love you _

Friday 6:01 AM

_    no one can get ahold of you and now im getting scared. Nicole said i could leave for a family emergency. if youre doing this just to piss me off you better fucking answer me before i get on this plane.  _

 

_   i feel insane for worrying ab this like this, but i just wantto say i love you even through this. im sorry things have been so hard. just please talk to me. _

 

_    Kyle. _

 

_    ill be home in 3 hrs. _

Kyle clutched his phone, squeezing until his knuckles went white, stared at the pieces of his father’s lamp, and threw his head back to scream as loudly as his aching lungs could manage.

 

* * *

 

Kyle didn’t get out of bed again except to piss and brush his teeth that night. He couldn’t bring himself to clean up the lamp, and stepped carefully around its imaginary forensics tape to move around his room. When he crawled back into bed, he pulled the comforter up all the way over his head, and he let his breaths heat up the small pocket of his blankets where his head was. Stan didn’t come back that night. The bed being his own had always been something nice to look forward to, but now he’d do anything for a warm body to lie beside him, even if they never spoke a word to each other after the sun went down.

He’d sent Stan a text at around three in the morning. He said he wanted to talk, even though he wanted least to do that. He wanted things to go away and start over. He knew though, staring at his blank phone screen black with inactivity, that they could never really do that. The damage had already been done, and they would forever be at least a little bit broken. God, he hated himself.

It was around two in the afternoon the next day that his phone finally lit up, to reveal a text that sent excited nerves dancing down his body. All it said was  _ “okay,” _ but okay was good. Okay was an agreement. He could live with okay.

This time, when Kyle heard the door swing open, he sat himself up in bed before Stan got to him. He shut off the idly chattering TV and waited. When Stan appeared at the bedroom doorway, looking down at the mosaic Kyle had painted into the ground and then back up at him, he looked so painfully serious and cold that Kyle had to look away.

“I’m sorry,” he managed to blurt out, attempting to put as much feeling into the declaration as possible, and Stan grunted at him, which was less than positive. Fear clenched around his heart. He’d had a lot of minutes since Stan walked out to realize how stupid he had been, about everything.

“I believe you,” Stan said, and Kyle felt like he could cry right then and there, feeling so undeserving of Stan’s patience and love that he feared he might burst into flames from Hell where he sat.

“You don’t have to talk to me. You can pack your things and go, if you want. I know I fucked up. God, I fucked up so bad.”

“Kyle,” Stan murmured, cutting him off, and he crept up to the bed to sit down next to him. He sat far enough away that they couldn’t possibly touch unless they wanted to, and that hurt more than Kyle wanted to admit. He didn’t look at him either, just stared at that damn broken lamp, but Kyle watched him. “I had to go to a convention center and listen to a bunch of people tell me things about team building, and discrimination in the workplace, and I had to do these dumbass group activities with strangers that felt like high school all over again.” He wrinkled his nose, and Kyle laughed, short, clipped before it could become something real. Stan glanced at first, then turned to face him, crossing one leg over the bed while the other hung loose off the edge. He still had his shoes on.

“I’m not going to walk out on you just because you lost your job and we had to move,” Stan said, and he reached his hand out, tentatively, like he was attempting to gain the trust of an animal. Kyle looked down at it, up at the face that still struggled to look at him, and back down, to slip his trembling fingers over his open palm. “I don’t hold this against you. I know you can’t help it. But please, Kyle,  _ believe me,” _ he pleaded, squeezing his hand tight and curling his fingers around it protectively, “when I say that I wouldn’t cheat on you for something like that.”

Everything about him felt like shattered glass. Kyle let his arms go limp, his posture dissolve, his eyes half-close. Everything was crumbling, the story he crafted deep in his brain broken with one swing. He shuddered from the restrained frustrated tears that were fighting to be let out. “I thought you were mad because I wouldn’t top.”

Stan laughed, but when Kyle glared at him, he stopped immediately. “I’m sorry, I just mean. That’s… You said you didn’t want to, so we didn’t. That was it. I can’t believe you’d think I’d cheat on you for  _ that.” _

“Well you didn’t give me much to work with to the contrary!” Kyle cried, shoving at him and crossing his arms, and Stan fought his laughter in this time. Smart.

“That so does not matter. We don’t even have sex that much anyway.”

Kyle groaned. “Don’t remind me…”

Stan winced. “Sorry. Guess that’s another sore spot, huh.”

They sat in silence beyond their breathing for a long time, failing to look at each other but aggressively enclosed in each other’s spaces.

Eventually, Kyle let out a tired little humorless laugh, the numbness surrounding his lungs making them feel tingly and frail. “I stopped taking my pills, a long time ago.” 

“I know,” Stan said, and Kyle let his body fall against Stan’s and his cheek rest on his soft, warm, jacketed shoulder.

“They weren’t working.”

“Yeah, well,” Stan shrugged, “they can’t work if you’re not taking them.”

“You called me insane.”

Stan sighed, heavy and sad. “I know I did.”

“Do you think I’m insane, Stan?”

There was an agonizingly long pause before Stan leaned over to press a kiss into his hair, and he murmured, softly, “I think insane is reserved for horror movies and murderers. Crazy, but not insane.”

Kyle really did laugh that time, and he squeezed Stan’s hand that he still held. The quietness of life buzzed around them before he spoke again. “We’re gonna need a lot of help if we want to fix this.” He didn’t specify, but he knew Stan understood what he meant.

“Do you want to?” Stan asked, and Kyle looked up at him to see the concern so plainly painted on his face that he wished he could wipe it all off with cloth. Stan was meant for smiling, not sunken eyes and pale skin and worry lines that he’d probably contributed to.

“Yes,” he whispered, and then Stan did smile, and Kyle buried himself in his chest with his arms around his neck. Stan’s hands slid around his sides and met firmly against his back, and Kyle closed his eyes to listen to his breathing and match it with his own, cradled in his lap like a child in need of soothing. He was though, just a child, and he used that justification for why he started to weep. Stan hushed him and ran his fingers through his disgusting, greasy, unwashed hair, and Kyle suddenly felt very strongly that if they could work past it all, Stan would make a wonderful father.

The position they’d fallen into eventually got uncomfortable, and Stan kicked off his shoes to stretch his legs out vertically, his chest open and gestured towards for Kyle to rest on it. He obliged, and the cotton of his shirt on his cheek made him feel like clouds. Stan clicked on the TV and they watched more yelling housewives without really watching.

“Half of these women need to learn how to actually do makeup,” Kyle muttered, and Stan laughed, the sound and motion of it rumbling like waves in a tiny pond against his ear.

“You’d think being on TV they’d be better at it, but they do look kinda awful,” Stan agreed, and Kyle hummed, validated. “Wanna get Chinese tonight?”

Kyle felt his mouth water at the proposal, feeling all at once the desperate amount of hunger that he’d been ignoring for days. Still, it felt weird to be having such a normal conversation, with glass on the floor and Stan lying in bed in work slacks. It felt like they hadn’t talked enough, like things were still unsaid. “Don’t you have more to say?” he asked, sitting up so that his head regretfully left the comfort of Stan’s chest, and Stan’s mouth downturned into a troubled frown. “I just mean, this was a lot. There’s a lot to unpack. Shouldn’t we do that?”

Stan looked deep in thought for a moment before shrugging his shoulders and looking at him with a twist in his eyebrows, vulnerability in his eyes. “If we wanna come back to it, we’ll come back to it.” He nibbled at his lip while he thought. “For now though, I just wanna be us. Does that make sense? I don’t wanna have some big, deep conversation about feelings and resentments and all that crap. Maybe this is selfish, I dunno,” he trailed off, and he saw his eyes linger briefly at the doorway, “but I just wanna be Stan and Kyle right now, you know?”

Kyle considered this, really did. He sat back and picked at the curling bits of skin he’d pulled back when he gouged at his arm the day before, but Stan grabbed his wrist gently to stop him. A flutter not unlike butterflies tickled his insides at how sweet it felt. “Nothing means anything, huh,” he said quietly, mostly to himself, but Stan picked up on it.

“What?”

“It’s just like, a thing. Don’t worry about it.” And with that lack of an explanation, Stan shrugged and pulled up the phone number to the shitty Chinese place down the street to make an order for their usual, reciting Kyle’s favorite by heart. Tonight Stan just wanted to be Stan, and Kyle to be Kyle, and the old man to be the old man and the sea the sea, and he was pretty sure he could be okay with that.

**Author's Note:**

> "No good book has ever been written that has in it symbols arrived at beforehand and stuck in," says Hemingway. "That kind of symbol sticks out like raisins in raisin bread. Raisin bread is all right, but plain bread is better."


End file.
